Quetico LLC, a Chino warehouse and distribution company, has been hit with labor law violation citations topping $1 million, says California Labor Commissioner Julie Su. The company was cited for overtime violations and failure to provide a required 30-minute meal period to employees involving 865 employees.

“The Labor Commissioner has reinvigorated enforcement at the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and is serious about addressing violations of basic labor laws,” says Christine Baker, director of the Department of Industrial Relations. The Division of Labor Standards Enforcement, also known as the California Labor Commissioner’s Office, is a division of DIR.

The state says its investigation revealed that Quetico, LLC had established restrictive procedures which shorted workers their wages. The company operates two warehouses on a complex occupying half a million square feet, an area the equivalent of just under 20 football fields. According to the state, the warehouse required employees to punch in but provided only three time clocks for their workers, resulting in long lines of more than 100 employees. Workers who arrived to work on time but waited in line to punch in were given “warnings” for punching in late. This created a situation where employees were obliged to report to work earlier and earlier, time for which they were not compensated.

When employees punched out for their meal period, they were also required to stand in long lines, which cut into their 30-minute lunch break and forced them to come back early to punch back in, the state says. The company would alter their time records to reflect that the employees had been allotted the full 30-minute lunch break.

Additionally, the Labor Commissioner’s investigation revealed that Quetico penalized workers who complained about the unpaid wages. A retaliation investigation concluded that the employer had issued disciplinary memos and suspended three workers who filed complaints with the Labor Commissioner. The workers’ records have been corrected and Quetico has made a commitment to make permanent changes to the punch card policy to avoid further labor law violations.

Quetico’s Chino facilities move products for big box retailers with merchandise including shoes, apparel and electronics. The workers package merchandise that is then sent out to stores and other distribution centers.

Earlier this week, a federal judge approved the $20.9 million settlement offered by Rite Aid Corporation to end 14 lawsuits alleging the drug store misclassified its salaried assistant and co-store managers in an effort to avoid paying the employees overtime. 

On average, the approximately 9,400 members of the settlement class, with the exception of those working at Rite Aid stores in California, will receive $1800 each, an amount that includes back pay, damages, and attorney fees. Class members vary by state, but in Pennsylvania, for example, the class consists of salaried and assistant co-managers employed since 2006. 

 For its part, Rite Aid maintains it did not violate any state or federal wage law, but is, instead, opting to settle to avoid the expenses associated with ongoing litigation. 

 In addition to the settlement for class members, the judge also approved attorney fees of $6.693 million and expenses totaling $273,598.

Talk show host Charlie Rose and his production company will pay $250,000 to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by a former intern, who claims that the company owed him back pay.

The company, Charlie Rose Inc. is expected to pay the wages to potentially 189 interns of the company. Each intern will receive approximately $1,100 each, which works out to $110 per week in back pay. Payments will be made to a maximum of 10 weeks. Neither the production company nor Rose will admit any wrongdoing as part of the agreement.

The original lawsuit was filed by plaintiff Lucy Bickerton, who claimed that she did not receive her dues when she worked for 25 hours a week for the show between June 2000 and August 2007. During this time, her responsibilities included everything, from researching guests appearing on the show, and providing background research for Rose, to escorting guests, and developing press packets. She even cleaned the green room.

This is the most recent in a series of lawsuits that California employment lawyers have found filed by unpaid interns. In all of these lawsuits, interns have alleged that they did not receive their due pay.

Interns have been around for decades now, and many college graduates choose to take up internships as a way of gaining valuable work experience before they actually begin working. However, California employment lawyers have found that many companies take advantage of these interns, making them perform duties that would have been performed by paid workers. In many cases, companies take advantage of these unpaid interns, and ultimately, don’t even provide them a proper educational experience.

A hospitality staffing company has settled a wage and hour lawsuit filed by at least 16 hotel workers in Indiana. The lawsuit alleged that these workers had not been fully paid for their duties, including housekeeping and other functions that they had performed at 9 hotels in Indianapolis.

The hospitality staffing company, Atlanta-based Hospitality Staffing Solutions, recruited staff for several hotels in the Indianapolis region. According to the lawsuit filed by these workers, Hospitality Staffing Solutions engaged in several violations of labor laws.

The company often told workers to work off the clock, and required them to clean a certain number of rooms, even if it meant that they had to work on their breaks, or work beyond their work hours. The workers also alleged in the lawsuit that they were not paid overtime for work that was performed beyond their normal working hours.

The workers were employed at some of the largest hotels in Indianapolis. Earlier, the lawsuit also mentioned these hotels as defendants, but later the lawsuit dropped their names.

In the lawsuit, the workers had sought back wages from Hospitality Staffing Solutions as well as legal fees. The terms of the settlement have not yet been revealed. The lawsuit was backed by employees unions.

Many of the workers who filed this lawsuit were non-English speaking, Spanish immigrants. As California employment lawyers often find, their socio-economic status often places these employees at risk for workplace exploitation. These employees are not aware of their rights, do not speak English, and therefore do not have the right kind of resources to learn about their rights. That makes them easy prey for employers who have no qualms about violating their rights under labor laws.

One of the country's most well-known restaurant chains is facing a lawsuit that accuses it of violation of labor laws by underpaying wages. The lawsuit has been filed under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act, and names Darden Restaurants Inc. which owns the Olive Garden and Red Lobster chains.

Darden Restaurants includes 4 restaurant chains, which include beside Red Lobster and Olive Garden, Capital Grille and Longhorn Steakhouse. The lawsuit was filed recently by 2 plaintiffs in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The lawsuit accuses Darden Restaurants of failure to pay the mandated minimum wages as specified under the Fair Labor Standards Act.

The lawsuit also accuses Darden of often forcing employees like waiters and waitresses to work “off the clock.” Many of these people who performed such “off the clock” work failed to receive the overtime wages that were due to them.

Even though the lawsuit has been filed by only 2 plaintiffs, it claims to represent as many as thousands of individuals who are currently employed at Darden Restaurants, or were employed at the company in the past. Specifically, workers who were employees of Darden between 2009 until now can join the lawsuit. According to the plaintiffs, ever since they filed this lawsuit, they have been hearing from former employees around the country, who had similar experiences during their term of employment with Darden Restaurants, and are willing to join the action.

There is no information yet about the back pay compensation the plaintiffs are claiming. However, this lawsuit is one in a recent series of lawsuits that California employment lawyers have found to target unfair labor overtime and tipping practices, as well as other employment-related abuses in the restaurant industry.

A California court has recently awarded approximately 15,000 security guards $90 million for ABM Security Services’ violation of the California Labor Code.  The security guards claimed that they were forced to remain on call with their cell phones or pagers on during their designated meal and rest breaks.  Because employees in California are entitled to breaks during which they are relieved from all duties, ABM’s actions clearly violated California labor laws.  The court has long determined that if an employee is to remain on call, then the employee must be compensated for that time.

California employment law attorneys at Arias, Ozzello and Gignac have had much experience with this kind of wage and hour law.  Employees who are off the clock must, in fact, be completely off the clock and not tied to the duties and responsibilities of work during their well-deserved and legally mandated rest break.

United Airlines, a part of United Continental Holdings. Inc., settled a minimum wage lawsuit on Tuesday alleging that the company’s contracts to provide skycaps at airports were in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.  The settlement of $250,000 approved by a federal judge will award 135 skycaps a payment of around $1,000 each after attorney’s fees.

The lawsuit alleged that between October 2006 and August 2008 the skycaps were not able to take a tip credit against the federal minimum wage after the airline, like others, began to charge a $2 fee curbside for each bag checked.  With some customers failing to pay the fee, the skycaps were forced to pay it themselves out of their tip money.  Consequently they were not able to keep all of their tips, and were thereby paid less than minimum wage. Because skycaps make most of their compensation from tips, they are traditionally paid less than minimum wage. 

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Rite Aid Corporation recently settled a $20.9 million wage and hour lawsuit. The dispute arose when store managers and assistant store managers sought overtime compensation for working in excess of 40 hours a week.  The plaintiffs claim that Rite Aid misclassified its managers and assistant managers as exempt employees and argued that the Fair Labor Standards act and certain state laws required Rite Aid to provide overtime compensation to these employees.  As part of the settlement, Rite Aid maintains that it has complied with the applicable state and federal laws and has properly classified its salaried employees, yet over 6,000 current and former associates are covered in the settlement, providing damages as far back as 2002. 

In a verdict that is disappointing to California employment lawyers, the Supreme Court has ruled that while employers are required to provide meal breaks to employees, they're not required to enforce these breaks. In other words, should the worker choose not to take a break but continue working, the employer would not be found liable.

The decision came in Brinker Restaurant Corp. Versus Superior Court of San Diego, a case that was filed by workers of the restaurant chain Chili's. The workers claimed that they had frequently missed their breaks, and that this violated California law.

In 2001, the state had imposed a law that required companies that did not make it mandatory for their employees to take rest or meal breaks pay a financial penalty. If workers missed a 30-minute rest break, then the employer was required to pay a one-hour wage to the employee.

However, the Supreme Court now believes that the penalties are unenforceable, and that use of the rest break should be left to workers. The court held that businesses do have an obligation to provide enough meal and rest breaks to an employee, and workers have the right to spend that half hour as they wish. If they wish to continue working, then it is not mandatory that the employer force them to take a break. According to the court ruling, the employer has completed his obligation to the worker, when he has relieved the worker of duty, and has given him a reasonable opportunity to take an uninterrupted half-hour break.

The plaintiffs did get some respite, however. The court did not dismiss outright the claims that the company violated employees’ meal break rights. Those charges will be argued again in a California court. The case could eventually become a class-action.

Celebrity chef Mario Batali, who is best known for his appearances on the television reality show On the Road Again with actress Gwyneth Paltrow has agreed to pay $5.25 million to settle a class-action lawsuit. The lawsuit alleged that he cheated workers at his Manhattan restaurant of their tips.

The lawsuit had been filed by restaurant workers at several New York restaurants owned by Mario Batali and his partner Joseph Bastianich, including The Spotted Pig and Tarry Lodge. Servers at these restaurants alleged that Mr. Batali and his partner unlawfully confiscated a portion of the workers tips, equaling 5% of the nightly wine sales. According to the lawsuit, the employers violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.

According to the management, the tips confiscated from workers went towards replacing broken glasses. However, according to the lawsuit, the tips were used to supplement the owners’ profits. The lawsuit also accused both Batali and his partner of failing to pay the federal minimum wage and failing to pay overtime wages to employees.

On March 5, Mr. Batali and his partner reached an agreement under which the two agreed to pay $5.25 million to settle the charges. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit included waiters, buses, runners, bartenders and other restaurant employees working at the New York eateries. The settlement has not yet been approved by a judge. However, once it is approved, it is expected to include more than 1,000 employees who worked at Casa Mono, Esca, Bar Jamon, Babbo, Del Pasto and several other exclusive restaurants.

All the workers named in the lawsuit will now have to distribute the settlement amount among them. California labor lawyers expect that the settlement will be divided based on the number of hours that the employees worked, and the kind of work they performed.